Pre-Purchase research

[_Sushi_]

I'm looking to get a red belly piranha, the local LFS has them for $5, juveniles, about 3-4 inches long.

I read somewhere that you can keep juveniles in a ten gallon. I have a ten gallon set up, AND cycling, but this would only be temporary, until I could get my paws on a 50. I don't want to put it in my 75 with my goldfish.

I was also wondering if I HAVE to get more than 1? Would 1 be ok with some silver dollars? Or just by itself?

I keep getting contradicting information on what they eat. Are they vegitarians that frequently eat meat, or pure carnivores?

I do have a couple of 10 gallons available just in case I need to move my goldfish, for the piranha to have more room, I'm just reluctant, b/c I have 9 goldies. I don't want to feed any of my collection fish (I collect unusually colored goldfish) to it.

Any tips and tricks? I want to do this right!! Thanks in advance!!

_Sushi_

 

[Bderick67]

Not a chance in a 10g. They are a schooling fish, and best kept in groups of 5 or more. They get big 8-9" so bare minimum would be 3 in a 75g. Best bet is 5-6 in a 100 gallon tank though. They are meat eaters, you can feed, frozen fish fillets and frozen raw shrimp, and It is healthier to say away from live feeders. Read the sticky threads at the top of this forum lots of info there.

 

[_Sushi_]

The 10 would only be a temporary situation until I could get my goldies out of the 75, or get another tank for my Ps.

I have about 6 tanks, and only half of them actually hold water -_-* I have a cracked 55, a "home made" (aka jury-rigged) 40, and a 75 tall with a bad seal. If it didn't completely suck, I could have easily used that for the piranhas.

 

[---XR---]

I'm looking to get a red belly piranha, the local LFS has them for $5, juveniles, about 3-4 inches long.

I read somewhere that you can keep juveniles in a ten gallon. I have a ten gallon set up, AND cycling, but this would only be temporary, until I could get my paws on a 50. I don't want to put it in my 75 with my goldfish.

I was also wondering if I HAVE to get more than 1? Would 1 be ok with some silver dollars? Or just by itself?

I keep getting contradicting information on what they eat. Are they vegitarians that frequently eat meat, or pure carnivores?

I do have a couple of 10 gallons available just in case I need to move my goldfish, for the piranha to have more room, I'm just reluctant, b/c I have 9 goldies. I don't want to feed any of my collection fish (I collect unusually colored goldfish) to it.

Any tips and tricks? I want to do this right!! Thanks in advance!!

_Sushi_

absoulute bare minimum is a 55 gallon tank, because they only get 8-10" which is small compared to the other pygo's, they are canivores. frequently fed foods include, smelt, tilapia, raw shrimp, and other sorts of non fatty market fish. get at least 3 if you want a shoal. and i wouldn't do more than that in a 55, anymore and i'd upgrade to something bigger.

 

[_Sushi_]

Would I be OK, if I only got them 1 at a time, because of my limited space at this moment? At the most, I'd only be able to get 2, that's all they had in stock.

I currently have a couple of my goldfish cycling the tank for tomorrow, and a RINSED not washed biofilter to get that tank ready.

 

[sirasoni]

At 3-4", those RBPs will outgrow that 10 really quickly. They generally don't too well as solitary specimens, and really would do better in a shoal. It'd be much better/easier to buy them all at once, as opposed to one by one. Honestly I'd suggest waiting until you had the 75g cycled and available to them, since the 3, possibly 4 RBPs can and will need it to themselves.

 

[sean-820]

more then one p at 3-4inch is already outgrown the 10g,
wait untill you have a larger setup or till you can put them in the 75

 

[sean-820]

more then one p at 3-4inch is already outgrown the 10g,
wait untill you have a larger setup or till you can put them in the 75

 

[_Sushi_]

They only had one in stock today, and they weren't planning on ordering anymore. But I can special order them through the petstore, so I picked up the one, and plan on ordering the other 2 next week. That'll give me a few days to move the goldfish, and clean my tank to get ready for my pirahnas.

I also bought a couple of neon tetras, and a SMALL pleco for him to have some buddies. These were fish I had read wouldn't be eaten, but aren't agressive enough to hurt my fish.

Found out the petstore was feeding them live guppies. Any tips on how I can wean him off of unhealthy live food?

I have a properly sized filter, some plants for privacy, and a heater in his tank for the time being. I made my own custom lid that is sure to keep him from jumping out and hurting himself.

He's very cute, and I'm glad that I found him before someone bought him as a "fighting fish"!!

 

[_Sushi_]

I don't know if the first one is too dark or not, I left the flash off so that it didn't hurt his eyes. I wasn't sure if it would or not.

Here's a pic of him before I turned him loose in his tank, so he could relax.

And another one of him relaxing near the bottom for a minute, just watching the tetras swimming by.